The Way the World was Changed Through Jesus’ Death, Burial, and Resurrection

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Yesterday (April 16, 2017) concluded the week that changed the world. This was an intense week of services, I would imagine, for most Christians. What we were celebrating is known as Pascha. The Old Testament celebration was known as Passover. Jesus is ultimately the Passover lamb. Therefore, the blood of Jesus Christ is better than the blood of bulls and goats. I want to say just a few things about this before the celebration passes all too quickly.

Jesus suffered fatal torment. This is one of the most well-established facts of ancient history. Even in today’s modern age of scientific enlightenment, there is a virtual consensus among New Testament scholars, both conservative and liberal, that Christ suffered fatal torment. Therefore, these scholars agree as well that the body of Jesus was buried in a private tomb. It was the tomb of Joseph Arimathea. As a member of the Jewish court that convicted Jesus, he is hardly Christian fiction.

I think considering the fact that females in ancient Judaism were routinely considered little more than chattel, the empty tomb accounts actually end up providing powerful evidence that the gospel writers valued truth over cultural correctness. Today, we might say “political correctness.” Not only that, but the earliest Jewish response to the Resurrection presupposes the empty tomb. In the centuries following the Resurrection, the fact of the empty tomb was forwarded by the friends and foes of Christ alike.

Now here is the point: Christianity simply could not have endured an identifiable tomb containing the remains of our Messiah. One thing can be stated with absolute certainty: the apostles did not merely propagate the teachings of our Lord; they were absolutely certain that He had appeared to them in the flesh after His crucifixion, after His death, and after His burial. Although we are now two thousand years removed from the actual event, we too can be absolutely certain with respect to Christ’s post-Resurrection appearances.

I love 1 Corinthians 15. It is one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture because here the apostle Paul is actually reiterating a Christian creed, and this is not just any creed — this is a creed that scholars of all stripes conclude can be dated to mere months after Messiah’s murder. Now, the creed unambiguously affirms Christ’s post-resurrection appearances. It is free from legendary contamination. Ultimately, it is grounded in eyewitness testimony.

I said this many a time on the Bible Answer Man broadcast, but I think the most amazing post-Resurrection appearance involves James. Because before those appearances, James was embarrassed by all that Jesus represented, but afterward, he was willing to die for the notion that Jesus was indeed God.

Then you look at what happened as a result of the Resurrection. This is unique in human history, because within a span of just a few hundred years, a small band of seemingly insignificant believers succeeded in turning an entire empire upside down. Within days of encountering the resurrected Christ, not merely twelve but thousands of people willingly surrendered their spiritual and sociological traditions. What I am talking about here is the Sabbath, for one. It was transformed into a first-day-of-the-week celebration of the rest we have through Christ, who delivers us from sin and the grave. Not only so, after the Resurrection, followers of Christ suddenly stopped making animal sacrifices. Why? Well, they recognized that the New Covenant is better than the Old Covenant because the blood of Jesus Christ was better than the blood of animals. So, the Jewish rite of Passover was radically transformed. In place of the Passover meal, believers began partaking of the Eucharist. In like fashion, baptism took on a brand-new meaning. Prior to the Resurrection, converts to Judaism were baptized in the name of Yahweh, God of Israel, but after the Resurrection, converts to Christianity were baptized in the name of Jesus, and in doing so, believers equated Jesus with Israel’s God.

One thing I am certain, if twenty-first-century Christians could fully apprehend the reality of the greatest feat in history, they (like their first-century counterparts) could turn the world upside down. That is precisely the point.

We are those who will never die. We can be persecuted. We can be even killed, as many Coptic Christians have been lately in the Middle East. We just heard in the news last week, I believe it was Palm Sunday, of Christians dying while they are worshiping Christ. So, we are asking the question, why would anyone die? Well, they know that they will not die. Those Christians are not dead. They are alive; they are in the presence of Jesus Christ, and one day, the body that was blown up in church will be resurrected immortal, imperishable, incorruptible.

Resurrection, bottom line, makes all the difference in the world.

If you haven’t read 1 Corinthians 15, carefully do so, because in that passage Paul makes the four-part argument that I just did. Jesus suffered fatal torment, the tomb was empty, He appeared and gave many convincing proofs that He was alive, and, as a result, they were radically transformed.

—Hank Hanegraaff

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. (1 Corinthians 15:3-5 NIV)

This blog is adapted from the April 17, 2017, Bible Answer Man broadcast.

Hi! My name is Warren Nozaki. I am on the research staff at the Christian Research Institute in Charlotte, NC. I am the guy doing the post for this blog. I have an M.Div. from Talbot School of Theology. This is an official blog for CRI the ministry of Hank Hanegraaff host of the Bible Answer Man broadcast.

2 Responses to The Way the World was Changed Through Jesus’ Death, Burial, and Resurrection

The veracity of the Christian religion rises or falls on the veracity of the Resurrection and the veracity of the Resurrection rises or falls on the historicity of the alleged post-death appearances of Jesus to his followers. Christians believe that the appearance stories in the Gospels and in the Early Creed are historical facts based primarily on the following:

1. There were so many alleged eyewitnesses to these appearances, sometimes in large groups.
2. These alleged appearances had a dramatic effect on the character of those who witnessed them.
3. These alleged appearances were the impetus for many early Christians to be willing to be tortured and painfully executed for their belief in the veracity of these appearances.
4. These Resurrection appearances were the primary reason for the rapid growth of Christianity.

Question: Are these facts sufficient evidence to believe that a three-day-brain-dead first century corpse really did come back to life possessing supernatural powers; supernatural powers which allowed him to teleport between cities, walk through locked doors, and levitate into space?

Before you answer that question I ask you to watch this Youtube video:

In this video, HUNDREDS of very devout, sincere people of faith believe that a woman who has been dead for 20 centuries is appearing to them. I have no doubt that at least some of these “eyewitnesses” would be willing to suffer great persecution and even death defending their belief that this event really happened.

Based on the very large number of eyewitnesses to this event and upon their very intense, sincere belief that this very extra-ordinary event really occurred…should we believe them?

Answer: Absolutely not!

Why? These people are very obviously experiencing an illusion. There is no dead woman to be seen anywhere in the video. Collective human experience would suggest that this is very likely what happened in the first century with the early Christians. The appearance stories in the Early Creed of First Corinthians 15, the earliest description we have of these alleged events, make no mention of a talking, walking, broiled-fish-eating Jesus. If the detailed appearance stories in the Gospels are literary embellishments, perfectly acceptable in a Greco-Roman biography as evangelical Christian New Testament scholar Michael Licona has demonstrated in his recent book, Why are There Differences in the Gospels?, it is quite possible that the actual early Christian appearance claims were based on illusions, similar to the one seen in the Youtube video above.